What is The Future of RDs? – iPad Kids

Guest Post by Carley Eichhorn, Residence Life Professional

So, you’ve heard of iPad kids, right? You might have seen the term used on social media or have laughed at  TikToks featuring these kids. If you don’t know what an iPad kid is, let me fill you in. An iPad kid is a coined term  used to describe young children who are constantly in front of screens, need technological stimulation at all times,  and in turn, lack effective communication and interpersonal skills. This is the generation that will soon impact  America and become the future of the Resident Director role. Because of the constant information and content flow  these children receive, the generation of iPad kids will be the most educated college students that there ever was.  However, with this great influx in knowledge, comes some backfire. The raising of youth today no longer sees the  high value in mastering soft skills. This will change the future of how a Resident Director supervises student staff  members and advises incoming college students. In the coming times, academics will no longer be the hardest  struggle of a college student, but rather learning how to live in a community with others.  

Now I’m not here to judge, stereotype, or make fun of a younger generation. In fact, I think there is a lot we can learn from iPad kids. They know how tech can improve our everyday lives and fully take advantage of the  accessible resources at their fingertips. As Resident Directors we need to prepare ourselves by learning about the  changing trends in youth so that we can best know how to serve our future residential communities. For us to truly  have a positive impact on our incoming student staff members and residents, we need to be able to understand  younger demographic trends.  

We can start to gain this understanding by truly listening and learning from our student staff members…  even if they say or do something we don’t agree with. I once had a Resident Assistant tell me that bulletin boards are  archaic ways to spread information, and oof did it hurt. However, I can’t say that they were wrong! The more I  thought about it, bulletin boards aren’t as effective as they used to be. They are either not looked at, or are products  of hours of hard work, only to be torn down and ripped by residents the following weekend. Let’s reflect on ways Resident Directors can learn from this and implement that knowledge into our future residential curriculums. Should  we send virtual newsletters instead? Perhaps we should host more educational programs? I’ll let you in on a little  secret, the answer is not in this blog, but rather will come from asking and listening to your student staff members.  

As Resident Directors learn to shift their roles with the times, we also need to teach our future staff  members the importance of soft skills. This is something they may have not had the opportunity or privilege to learn  before coming to college. Some of the most important skills employers seek are interpersonal qualities. It is our duty  

to advise our student staff members and help them learn and thrive in their roles. Many of the Resident Assistants I  have worked with have told me their apprehensions about door knocking, ice breakers at floor meetings, and face-to face intentional conversations. All of these tasks exercise the use of communication and soft skills, and might I add,  are required expectations for their role. We need to teach our staff members at the beginning of the year that if they  

go room-to-room during move-in and meet their residents, it won’t be so scary to knock on their door, or chit-chat  with them during the rest of the year. With that, we need to emphasize that program attendance recruiting does not  start a week before the event. It starts on move-in day when students are looking for comfort, acceptance, and  community in their new home. Resident Directors need to stress to their staff members the importance and “why”  behind the daunting tasks of face-to-face socialization with their residents.  

Speaking of residents, let’s chat about what the future holds for Resident Directors and resident  relationships. I think an important realization we need to consider is that our incoming students have dealt with  significantly more technological issues than they have with human conflict. They are ingrained in quick fixes that  are not confrontational. When someone faces technology issues, they tailor the settings to their preferences, have a  professional fix the device, or accept that the device is broken, and needs to be replaced. Here’s the thing,  roommates and other students in the hall are not pieces of technology. Students cannot expect Resident Directors  and Resident Assistants to handle roommate conflicts by tailoring to one’s preferences. Also, we need to teach  students that you can’t just replace a roommate every time there is an ounce of conflict in the room. A Resident  Directors future will consist of having the utmost patience and willingness to teach conflict resolution and effective  communication skills.  

Despite the new adaptations we may face when advising and welcoming iPad kids into the residential  communities our future also consists of learning from them. We too, can learn new effective communication skills.  For example, when a student is unaware of the hall’s rules and policies, we may sigh and think that they are on  posters throughout the halls and were written in several areas for the resident to see. Did we truly do our best to  communicate our community expectations to these students? The same students are looking at their phones and not  the walls the entire time they are walking through the halls, waiting for the elevator, and leaving for class. We could  perhaps tailor our policy communication to better reach our modern target audience. The modern student is also not  always looking at their phone to be rude and dismissive of the world around them. They can be studying for a class,  accessing news, or learning something new. As Resident Directors we can utilize the student’s passion for always  seeking new information to create more conversations in our halls focused on global issues, community  improvements, and political climates. Our future will depend on altering our traditional Residence Life and  education ways to better connect with the modern student.  

The future of the Residence Director role is iPad kids. We need to be focusing on how to best understand  the youth of today that will be the upcoming population we serve. By Residence Directors taking in new student  perspectives and sharing skills with students they might not come to college with, we will create a strong  community, and an even stronger future.